Under the banner of the new regionalism, the past decade has witnessed a
revival of academic and political interest in the region as a strategic site for
economic activity and scale for socially integrating civil society. What remains
unclear though are the ‘actual mechanisms’ that connect this new politics of
economic development with transitions in the regulation and governance of
contemporary capitalism and its territorial form. This article seeks further
connection by distinguishing between the processes of centrally orchestrated
regionalism and regionally orchestrated centralism in the production of regions.
While sympathetic to the general tenor of the new regionalism, this article
presents an account of England’s unique new regionalist policy experiment to
pose searching questions relating to the future direction of the new regionalism.
Arguing that the new regionalism remains a fruitful avenue for unravelling the
processes involved in the production of spatial scale(s), the article concludes that
uncovering the politically-charged processes involved in the production of
subnational space remains an urgent task for urban and regional scholars.